“Charlie.”
“Ah! You all will insist on believing that I loved him better than I did!” she cried, with both pain and impatience in her voice, for the family delusion tried her very much at times.
“How could we help it, when he was everything women most admire?” said Mac, not bitterly, but as if he sometimes wondered at their want of insight.
“I do not admire weakness of any sort I could never love without either confidence or respect. Do me the justice to believe that, for I'm tired of being pitied.”
She spoke almost passionately, being more excited by Mac's repressed emotion than she had ever been by Charlie's most touching demonstration, though she did not know why.
“But he loved you so!” began Mac, feeling as if a barrier had suddenly gone down but not daring to venture in as yet.
“That was the hard part of it! That was why I tried to love him, why I hoped he would stand fast for my sake, if not for his own, and why I found it so sad sometimes not to be able to help despising him for his want of courage. I don't know how others feel, but, to me, love isn't all. I must look up, not down, trust and honor with my whole heart, and find strength and integrity to lean on. I have had it so far, and I know I could not live without it.”
“Your ideal is a high one. Do you hope to find it, Rose?” Mac asked, feeling, with the humility of a genuine love, that he could not give her all she desired.
“Yes,” she answered, with a face full of the beautiful confidence in virtue, the instinctive desire for the best which so many of us lose too soon, to find again after life's great lessons are well learned. “I do hope to find it, because I try not to be unreasonable and expect perfection. Smile if you will, but I won't give up my hero yet,” and she tried to speak lightly, hoping to lead him away from a more dangerous topic.
“You'll have to look a long while, I'm afraid,” and all the glow was gone out of Mac's face, for he understood her wish and knew his answer had been given.